United States dominates Mexico in Pan American Games

LIMA, Peru, August 1, 2019.- United States dominated Mexico 3-0 (25-24, 25-22, 25-23) for their first win at the Lima 2019 Pan American Games in pool B at the Multisport Complex El Callao of Lima, Peru.

United States and Mexico engaged in a neck to neck battle, with Mexico leading 43-40 in kills; however the US came out on top with 8-3 margin in blocks and scoring on 23 opponent errors against 18. Both teams finished with 5 points in the service category.

Three players of United States scored double-figures, with David Wieczorek and Brenden Sander scoring 15 points apiece as leading hitters, followed by Kyle Ensing with 11 points. Jorge Barajas and Ridl Garay were in charge of Mexico’s offense with 12 and 11 points respectively.

United States improves to 1-1 record and on Friday faces Brazil in their last preliminary match; Mexico win-less closes with Chile.

Comments:

David Wieczorek, top scorer of United States: “I think we had a great response.  We came out a little slow against Chile yesterday and I don´t think that´s how we want to play USA volleyball, so I am really proud of the guys for how we bounced back performing at a better game level”.

Milan Zarkovic, Head coach of United States: “Yesterday’s game was too fast for us so we didn’t get into the spirit of it. Today we came really prepared psychologically even with one of our starters sick, so I think Brenden Sander brought some explosiveness. Our performance was enough to come out on top in a close battle to Mexico”.

Jorge Azair, Head coach of Mexico: “We had some good and bad moments, unfortunately at key moments we lost consistency, we didn’t attack and without attack it’s much more difficult to score”.